Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Chair of the House Judiciary
Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties,Jerrold Nadler has served in
Congress since 1992. He represents New York's 8th Congressional
District, which includes parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn.

On
DOJ Civil Rights Division

"Today, the Subcommittee continues its oversight
of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. With the
authority to enforce this nation's civil rights laws, the Division is
the guardian of our fundamental values: freedom of religion, the right
to be treated fairly, the right to cast a vote in a free and fair
election, the right to a job, the right to a home, the right to an
education, and, with the enactment of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act,
the right to live your life free from the threat of violent hate
crimes.

"As our Subcommittee has documented, the Division
has been deeply troubled over the past eight years. Career civil rights
attorneys were routinely overruled by political appointees, hiring was
illegally politicized, enforcement was, in some key areas, grossly
neglected, and morale was as bad as at any time since the Division's
establishment. The loss of dedicated career staff was alarming.

"We now have a new Assistant Attorney General, Tom
Perez. He is a career civil rights lawyer, and he has a tremendous job
ahead of him. In addition to the historically challenging work of the
Civil Rights Division, he must rebuild a decimated and demoralized
office, and he must do so with such monumental tasks as the decennial
redistricting on the horizon. We would have liked to have had him here
sooner, but some of our colleagues in the Other Body, apparently didn't
have the same sense of urgency in getting him on the job.

"I hope to hear from Mr. Perez how he plans to
meet these challenges.

"We will also hear from the Government
Accountability Office, which has produced two extensive reports on the
Civil Rights Division at the request of Chairman Conyers, Mr. Watt, and
myself. I think the analysis and recommendations will help move the
Division forward as it meets the challenges of the next few years.

"I want to welcome all our witnesses, and I look
forward to their testimony."

Interview notes: These are just incomplete sketches caught on the fly. Listen to the podcast for accurate quotes.

DOJ: Good news in civil rights division

Failure to investigate or prosecute torture.

Where there is credible evidence that torture
occurred there must be investigation.

need independent prosecutors

in most agencies, reviewing OPR report would have been a job of
inspector general.

President
says look forward, not backward, but if you look forward, only, you
would never prosecute any crime.

Worse thing is state secrets. WE have rights. If the govt.
violates your rights, -- torture you, steal your gun,

There's no right without a remedy.

What is the remedy if the govt violates your rights. Only one--
sue the govt. Injunction and/or damages.

Govt. moves to dismiss the complaint on grounds that hearing
the lawsuite will be issue of state security. If court dismisses
lawsuit... you can never get into court. That's what state secrets
doctrine is being used for.

Started
as protection for documents. Bush took to include

Legislation: can't block a case based on state secrets act.

Must be a suppression hearing. Govt. must convince judge that
in fact a vitally important secret would be revealed.

Courts
decide.

If 16:00

Have used state secrets act to prevent anyone from getting
into court regarding torture, wiretapping...

Iqbal decision; for 50 years, prior to supreme court decision,
you sued general motors , ....25:

as long as you stated the charge, they would not grant the motion to
dismiss

Now, judge can dismiss because
you haven't made a plausible case.

Another example. makes it very difficult, almost impossible for
individu

Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet and the Psychopathy Defense and Optimization Project.